


Lousy Rotten Valentine's Day

by stilitana



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Biology, Body Horror, Dark Comedy, Gen, Gross, Identity Issues, Monsters, Slapstick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 17:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: Dropout delivery boy Ricky Dergo gets a new life path when he becomes the unwitting host of a blood-drinking parasite from outer-space. This is the least of Ricky Dergo's problems.





	Lousy Rotten Valentine's Day

            The first thing Ricky Dergo did wrong was ignore the toxic hazard signs. The second thing was – but that’s not right, is it, because the first thing Ricky did wrong was a whole can of worms, where to begin? That third beer and sixth shot of tequila were contenders. So was taking the dare from Lloyd in the first place. So was getting to know Lloyd in the first place, truthfully.

            Oh, he could go further back. He should have stuck with the program and graduated high school – he’d only had five months left, for god’s sake. He should have shown up more – to class, for dinner, for life. Should have spent less time huffing paint in the sculpture room during lunch break, should have taken better care of his skull and not let it get knocked around so much just for a laugh.

            Too late, Ricky had already slid under the yellow tape and stripped down to his briefs, thrown one toothy grin over his pale, bony shoulder at his guffawing companions. He gave them a jaunty wave, pinched his nose shut, and jumped with a yowl into the water. It was one of the deeper pools of the local springs which were closed to the public at that time due to a toxic algae bloom, according to the signs posted around the area and the media coverage. All week people in white coats and face masks dipped instruments in the water, reading the levels of…well, Ricky didn’t know. All Ricky knew was, he’d gone swimming during a so-called ‘toxic’ algae bloom before and had not been any worse for wear afterwards.

            The water was cold. It rushed over his head and he was afraid. Every inch of his skin prickled with pins and needles. Ricky kicked to the surface and gasped, shook his head like a dog dislodging water.

            “Ricky?” one of his buddies called from the shore.

            “Yeah,” Ricky yelled, shooting him a thumbs up.

            “You feel like the toxic avenger yet?”

            “It’s fine, guys. Those science guys, they don’t know shit, man. It’s fine like always. It’s always – fine. Whoa, hey.”

            “What?”

            “Something’s on me,” he said, kicking his leg to dislodge what felt like a wet length of slimy rope or kelp wrapped around his ankle. Rather than floating away, it constricted. And then Ricky felt more of them, more slimy, slick somethings nudging him, winding up his arms, sliding across his chest, oozing up between his toes. Ricky peed himself a little and held very still for a moment, not breathing, and then he laughed a high, shrill laugh.

            “What do I do?” he said.

            “What do you mean, what do you do?”

            “They’re everywhere,” he said, splashing towards the shore. “Ouch, man.”

            The pain was shaped like circles as the things bit at soft places: under his arms, the inside of his thighs, his groin, his belly, his neck. Ricky gargled water. Panic made him clumsy. His arms and legs swung through the water, propelled by adrenaline, but the shock of the biting made him go numb for a second. His face submerged, mouth open to catch a breath. He sucked in water instead, and then something was wriggling past his lips, into his mouth, bullying his tongue out of the way and forcing itself down his throat. Ricky choked and tried to scream. He surfaced and flailed his limbs wildly, gagging, vision blacking. He could not breathe, he could not make much noise aside from a wretched wheezing around the fleshy, cylindrical thing wedged in his trachea. Its body spasmed with rhythmic muscular contractions that drug it deeper down his throat. Ricky was caught between the urges to cough and swallow.

            The shore was slick beneath his hands and knees. He dragged himself out. His buddies crowded around him, shouting and gesturing. He couldn’t make out their words – he just grabbed his throat and rolled on the ground, gurgling, his eyes bulging out.

            “Ricky, man, what’s the matter?”

            “Whoa, shit, you see these fuckin’ things, man?”

            “Leeches, shit!”

            Ricky’s buddies tore the leeches off him and tossed them back into the water or onto the shore to die. Ricky held his throat and rolled back and forth, choking and going blue in the face.

            His pal Gustave knelt by his face. “Ricky, can you hear me? Ricky?”

            “Yeah, uh-huh,” Ricky wheezed. His voice was little more than a hiss of air.

            “You swallow water? You need the Heimlich, man?”

            “Can’t – breathe,” Ricky gasped.

            Gustave grabbed Ricky behind the arms and hauled him up so that Ricky’s back was flush with his chest. Then Gustave held his hands together and pumped them against Ricky’s stomach.

            Ricky gagged. The thing in his throat wriggled deeper. He felt a sharp, lacerating pain, as though it was not only choking him, but shredding him. It dug deeper, the fiery pain following it. Ricky thought of mountaineers who wore those spiked shoes to dig into the cliffside and haul themselves up. He pictured the leech spelunking down his esophagus, sprouting spines to lodge itself in his flesh. He waved his hands.

            “Stop,” he spluttered. “Stop.” He tried to smack Gustave’s arms away but was not strong enough. Ricky coughed up blood and drooled. He was salivating.

            “I’ll save you, man. Don’t worry, Ricky, it’s going – to be – ok,” Gustave said, panting and speaking between his increasingly forceful pumps against Ricky’s abdomen.

            The leech, or eel, whatever it was, slid further down until Ricky’s windpipe was clear. He took a deep breath that whistled down his throat and stung all the way down. He whimpered and shook and went limp against Gustave’s back.

            “Did I get it? Did I get it?” Gustave said.

            Ricky’s buddies cheered. Ricky lay there, propped against Gustave, pale and moaning quietly. He could feel it inside of him, at the very bottom of his throat, tickling his insides. Ricky had never been aware of his organs before. Ricky had been fortunate to always be in good health until now, aside from the minor colds and sprains and minor knocks to the head. He had enjoyed the silence of health for all the twenty-four years he had been alive. He had not yet had cause to feel the wet pulp of his own body, to feel how it was constantly pulsing and clenching and aching. Now he felt it. He felt the thing distending his organs, he felt the outline of his own intestines as they stretched ever so slightly around its slim bulk. He groaned and slumped forward, wrapping his arms around himself.

            Gustave slapped the side of Ricky’s face, gently. “Come on, man. Come on, we gotta move. We gotta get the hell out of here, we made a lot of noise, somebody might come and see.”

            Gustave and another man hauled Ricky to his feet. They suspended his arms around their shoulders and together half-dragged him to Gustave’s pickup truck, where they shoved and lifted and cajoled him into the passenger seat. Gustave slammed the door shut and Ricky slumped against it, focusing on breathing, on not freaking out totally and irreparably. He felt it was very important not to think of anything, to reduce his sphere of sensation down to the feeling of air filling and emptying from his lungs. If he felt or thought anything else, he might wind up in such a panic he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to find his way back. Ricky prided himself on being perpetually chill. Such a breach of protocol simply would not do, man. To freak out was not the Ricky Dergo way. When he had ridden his brother’s dirt bike over the ridge and cracked his skull against a pine tree so that blood ran into his eyes, he did not freak out, but laughed and laughed and let his brother wipe off the blood and did not tell mom until she saw the gash the next morning and shrieked, and only then did Ricky go to the hospital to get stitched up. He still had the scar. He ran his fingers over it as Gustave blabbered and drove the truck away from the springs, onto the dark road.

            “You swallowed water, man. You went under and got a lung full, you had a scare, you gave us a scare. But I guess Donnie owes you the twenty bucks, right? Right?”

            “Right.”

            “How’re you feeling, Ricky?”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “How many fingers am I holding up?”

            “N…none, man.”

            “Who’s the president, man?”

            “The celebrity apprentice, man.”

            “Good, good. God bless America, man.”

            “Uh-huh…”

            “Listen, I’m gonna get us home, and then you’ll feel much better, you’ll see, it’ll all turn out alright. Right?”

            Ricky grinned as well as he could and flopped one arm out to clasp Gustave’s bicep. “’S all good, man. No worries.”

            Gustave glanced at him with a nervous grin. “Yeah? You’re all good? You’re sure?”

            “Yeah,” Ricky said, waving his hand, which rotated limply on the wrist like a lump of inanimate meat. “Totally, man. You worry too much.”

            Gustave took medication for his worrying, Ricky well knew. They had not been roommates for two years for nothing, after all. What was the use in Gustave worrying? It would all turn out fine, Ricky was sure. Everything always turned out fine.

            Gustave helped him stagger into the bathroom, where Ricky stripped off his wet clothes and stood under the hot showerhead, gulping steam. He got into clean underwear and collapsed on his unmade bed, burrowed beneath the sheets, seeking warmth for his chilled body. His skin was covered in goosebumps. He could not stop shivering. The presence of the thing lodged in his organs was less and less obtrusive, but if his mind strayed from the distractions he crafted for it, he could feel it once more, the weight and bulk of it, the foreign slick girth.

            Ricky thought about shredding away at his guitar in Gustave’s dad’s garage, his buddy banging away on the drums behind him fit to deafen them both. He thought about riding his brother’s dirt bike off ramps and over self-made obstacle courses. He thought about tits and the sweet ample body of the only girl he’d ever fucked, who’d ever fucked him. Ricky was just about out of material to think about when he finally, mercifully fell asleep and did not have to think again for a few hours of blissful unconsciousness whilst the alien set to work refashioning his body into a suitable host.

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy there. If you know me, you know this is very on-brand. If you don't, welcome, it's all downhill from here. I am as much along for the ride as the rest of you. Like and subscribe for more niche content. :,)  
> I love you all, feel free to find me on tumblr @stilitana


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